13 Facts About Mary Mackey

Mary Lou Mackey was born on 1945 and is an American novelist, poet, and academic.

Mary Mackey is the author of eight collections of poetry and fourteen novels, including A Grand Passion and The Village of Bones, The Year The Horses Came, The Horses At The Gate, and The Fires of Spring, four sweeping historical novels that take as their subject the earth-centered, Goddess-worshiping cultures of Neolithic Europe.

Long concerned with environmental issues, Mackey frequently writes about the rainforests of Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon.

Mary Mackey's mother worked as a chemist in the Mead Johnson laboratories during World War II.

Mary Mackey is married to Angus Wright, CSUS Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies, with whom she frequently travels to Brazil.

Mary Mackey was one of the founders of the CSUS Women's Studies Program.

Mary Mackey founded the CSUS English Department Graduate Creative Writing Program along with poet Dennis Schmitz and novelist Richard Bankowsky.

In 1978 Mary Mackey founded The Feminist Writers' Guild with poets Adrienne Rich and Susan Griffin, author Charlene Spretnak, and novelist Valerie Miner.

Mary Mackey is the author of fourteen novels and eight collections of poetry.

Mary Mackey is noted for her historical fiction, particularly for The Village of Bones, The Year The Horses Came, The Horses At The Gate, and The Fires of Spring, a series set in Neolithic Europe which Mackey based on the research of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas.

Mary Mackey is noted for her lyric poetry which has been praised by Wendell Berry, Jane Hirshfield, Maxine Hong Kingston, Dennis Nurkse, Ron Hansen, Dennis Schmitz, and Marge Piercy for its beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range.

Four of Mary Mackey's novels comprise her Earthsong Series.

Mary Mackey wrote two Civil War novels, The Notorious Mrs Winston and The Widow's War, which are set in Indiana and Kansas, respectively.